Taking the Temperature

Date
27 March 2026	Assigned
3 April 2026	Due
Progress

For this lab, you'll collaborate with a teammate to develop a thermometer using the on-board temperature sensor on the Raspberry Pi Pico. This project should use the LEDs to display the relative warmth (hot, warm, cold) the surrounding environment.

Learning Objectives

This assignment addresses the following course learning objective(s):

1. Apply Python programming fundamentals to execute and explain computer code that implements interactive, novel solutions to a variety of computable problems.
2. Implement code consistent with industry-standard practices using professional-grade integrated development environments (IDEs), command-line tools, and version control systems.
3. Analyze and suggest revisions to existing Python language code to add functionality or repair defects.
4. Evaluate the practical and ethical implications of writing computer code and discuss the contexts, perceived effects, and impacts exerted on and by computer code as a cultural force or artifact.
5. Design, describe, and implement original projects incorporating industry-standard practices and Python language fundamentals.

Pinout Diagram

Note

This is similar to the Stoplight lab, with the substitution of a blue LED.

The above graphic is a pinout diagram: a description of how to wire a physical computing project. Match the above diagram with the following components:

• push button
• Raspberry Pi Pico
• 2 wires
• breadboard
• 3 resistors
• 3 LEDs

Pins	Purpose
15	Button
16	Blue light†
17	Yellow light†
18	Red light†

Important

The above writing is critical to the code. We address specific parts during our programs. Make sure it matches. If you have questions, ask a TL or the instructor!

^†: indicates that a resistor must exist between the light and the pin.

Summary of the problem

Important

In order to run the program in this lab, you'll need to do the following when you've made the appropriate changes:

uv run mpremote cp src/Thermometer.py :
uv run mpremote cp src/Sensor.py :

As you will make changes in this file to create a functional Thermometer and Sensor, you'll need to do this each time the file changes!

Note

In order to test this lab, you may need to be a bit creative about temperature surrounding the device. However, keep in mind that you should not expose it to open flame or another very hot heatsource (i.e., put it directly in an oven or microwave).

As part of this lab, you'll need to figure out how to test this device!

The lab consists of three (3) parts:

• a Sensor object which captures the value of the Pico temperature sensor
• a Thermometer object that determines relative warmth and displays results using LEDs
• a main (driver) file that controls the interaction between the Sensor and Thermometer, while guiding the flow of the program

main

main operates a loop until the power_off button is pressed, at which time the apparatus turns off. On startup, the main should instruct the Thermometer to go through the reset cycle described below.

Sensor

This object has one purpose: read the internal sensor. We set this sensor up using the following approach (the necessary imports are already in the file):

ADC(4)

One might think that reading a temperature sensor results in a temperature. Here, that's not the case. The sensor reports a relative voltage which we need to calculate using the following formula:

$$ reading \times \frac{3.3}{65535} $$

This should result from a method of Sensor named read_sensor_voltage called in main.

Thermometer

Temperatures

Now that we have the reading of the voltage of the sensor, we convert to a Celsius temperature using the following conversion:

$$ 27 - \frac{(voltage - 0.706)}{0.001721} $$

From there, we can calculate the temperature in Fahrenheit, which we'll use to determine relative warmth:

$$ (celsius \times \frac{9}{5}) + 32$$

The functions that do this work should be named, respectively:

• convert_temp_to_c
• convert_temp_to_f

However, rather than return a value, each should set properties of the object called temp_in_c and temp_in_f. We'll use these to operate the LEDs.

LED control

LEDs should be controlled using the following functions and approach:

Function	Description
reset	Turns all LEDs on for 1 second, then off
lights_out	Turns all LEDs off
set_led_output	Turns on the appropriate light for temperature conditions (see below)

This table describes use of the LEDs:

LED	Designation	Meaning
Red	Hot	Temperature greater than 70 degrees
Yellow	Warm	Temperature between 32 and 70 degrees
Blue	Cold	Temperature lower than 32 degrees

Implementing hardware

The hardware (the Raspberry Pi Pico) relies on some fundamental structures:

• Pins
  • Pin.IN
  • Pin.OUT
• sleep

Pins

Pins represent physical pins on the Raspberry Pi Pico device which can be either inputs or outputs. Our button is an input: Pin(16, Pin.IN); our LED is an on-board output: Pin("LED", Pin.OUT).

As a general rule, 0 indicates a press, and 1 indicates the button is not being pressed.

LEDs

LEDs (lights) required Pin.OUT modes. For example, to program the RED light. To turn these on and off, use the on and off methods of the Pin.

# Turns light ON
self.lights[light].on()
# Turns light OFF
self.lights[light].off()

Assignment procedure

Important

As a team assignment, this repository does not allow direct commits to main. Here you'll have to use branches and reviews to ensure that the project functions and is generally well understood by the team.

In practice, this means that everyone must branch their changes and that each Pull Request requires 2 reviews before it can be merged.

Evaluation

Note

To grade this lab, use the uv run gatorgrade command.

Labs in this course are each worth 5 points. You are awarded different levels of points using the following rubric:

Component	Value
Programming	2
Code Review	2
Writing	1
Total	5

Programming

Your programming will be evaluated on the following characteristics:

• Program reflects startup expectations in main
• Program reads correct temperature
• Program displays relative temperature correctly using LEDs

Expected output

The output for this program relies on external LEDs to validate outputs/outcomes.

Code review

Either a Technical Leader TL or the instructor can perform a code review with you. This must be done before the due date for the assignment. You may accomplish this during a lab session, TL office hours, or during the instructor's office hours. Successful completion of this review (and an accompanying successful outcome) will earn points toward the code review portion of the assignment.

Even though this assignment is collaborative, each student must complete the code review on their own.

Writing

Students are expected to finish a summary document. This is a Markdown file containing questions. All questions must be answered fully. Typically, this means a word count is assessed.

For this assignment, the minimum required word count is 150.